About Town

About Town

Hallo Everyone!

Hope your week is going well

and you are ready for a little

light crafting................!

Jane Castle is here to get us

started with the new

Cityscape dies.......

"For my project today I decided to make 

a card for the boys and I have to say

I really enjoyed putting this one together.

It wasn't the easiest to photograph unfortunately

 but I think you will get the general idea of depth 

and movement as we proceed through the stages.

To begin with I started with a 15cm x 15cm 

card blank, place this on your work top so that 

the fold of the card is in front of you 

rather than on the lefthand side. 

Then about half way from the fold 

make a score line each side of about 5cm in length.

Join the 2 scores up with a shaped cut, 

I cut around a saucer using a craft knife. 

Then open and fold on the score lines only.

Now you have a card front that with stand up 

when opened but will still lay flat for placing in an envelope.

Then using the new Tim Holtz Thinlits Cityscapes dies

 I proceeded to cut various houses, trees, cars, washing etc.

If like me you have a box of small off-cuts of card 

that you think will come in useful one day -- 

Today is that day!!

I decided to put together several houses before 

assembling the card so I could try various combinations. 

Some parts are really quite tiny and I found 

when glueing together it was easier to squeeze 

some glue onto an acrylic block and dip the

 parts into the glue holding them with tweezers.

If any glue went inbetween the holes 

just a light tap on the side of the block 

seemed to remove it.

Although each house has it's own components 

it is easy and great fun to customize each one 

to your own liking.

Having assembled one of the cars I then 

had a moment of madness and made a 

shrink plastic smiling face for inside

For this I used the frosted shrink plastic 

and coloured the back with a dot of pink 

for the cheeks before shrinking.

For the card to stand up it needs something 

to tuck the front edge under so for this 

I made a Happy Birthday greeting out of 

Kraft card and Distress Oxide inks

This was then cut to size and mounted onto 

some black Mirri card and attached 

to the card with foam pads. 

The card blank was also coloured 

with the same inks.

Then it was a case of trial and error in deciding 

where each piece went to create a scene. 

Once everything was glued in place I cut 

a piece of acetate 5cm wide and longer than 

I knew I needed and attached the aeroplane 

to one end. I fiddled around adjusting the length 

but wasn't completely happy with the way

 it was hanging --- I felt it needed more weight.

 I then cut another aeroplane and stuck this onto 

the back so that the acetate was sandwiched and 

hey presto it now had enough weight to keep the 

acetate hanging over the rooftops.

There is such a wonderful amount of detail 

to these die sets that I can see they will be 

an asset to anyones crafting toolbox."

Items Used:

Tim Holtz Thinlits Cityscape Commute and Suburbia

Distress Oxide Inks

Acetate

Cosmic Shimmers Acrylic Glue

Pinflair Glue

Black Mirri Card

Crafty Individuals 438 stamp set

Shrink Plastic Frosted

Foam Pads

Kraft Card

So nice to see a card idea for the boys

Thank you so much Jane

These dies might become a little

addictive!  Shall have to wait and

see how the week progresses before

I get my dies out...............!!

"Till tomorrow

Mickie xx

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Hallo everyone

Hope you are all on top of your

festive preparations and can take

a moment to put your feet up 

with a nice cuppa and........relax

We have another card 

for you today from Jane Castle

For my project on the theme ‘Merry Christmas’ 

I decided to go half traditional and half contemporary

(This card design was one that I felt would be easy to make 

several of so there are multiple   stampings in each photo).

I started with a 15cm square card blank which was coloured 

with a blending tool and Distress Inks in 

Stormy Skies, Faded Jeans, Wild Honey and Vintage Photo.

Next I stamped the 3 Kings from Crafty Individuals 270 

in Black Archival and heat embossed using clear EP. 

Then bearing gifts ........ was stamped and heat embossed also

The camels and Kings heads were coloured in using water colour pencils.

The 3 Kings were then stamped onto scrap pieces of coloured card 

and heat embossed.

Then just the cloaks were cut out, slightly curled with a bone folder 

and glued onto the card.

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh was stamped onto kraft card, 

heat embossed, cut into strips and the edges defined 

with some Treasure Gold in Renaissance.

The stars were then stamped in VersaMark ink onto kraft card 

and heat embossed with white EP.

These were then cut out and also given some touches

of Treasure Gold.

The elegant swirls were cut from some christmassy card stock

using Crafty Individuals Die.

The star was threaded through the swirl before attaching to the card.
The final touch was to add some darker patches of ink 

to the sand to give the impression of depth. 

For this I used my little finger!

As I didn’t use any foam pads to attach the stars etc 

I was pleased that these cards were still thin enough 

not to need a ‘Large Letter’ stamp when posting 

------ My Oh My that can be Sooo annoying!

Materials Used

Distress Inks
Archival Inks
Crafty Individuals stamps & dies

Jofy stamps
Treasure Gold
Kraft Card
Embossing Powders
Ranger Blending Tool 

Finally, I just want to wish you all

Merry Christmas

 Thank you Jane and we all wish you

Merry Christmas

'Till tomorrow

Mickie xx